You can't see everything you need to see when you are out there. For example, it is hard to see low-slung cars waiting to pull out of a driveway between large, parked cars. As much as you would like to be hyper-alert to everything, there are somethings you can miss, and that is one of them.
Also, as alert as you might be to some guy fishing around in his trunk, he still might pull out a stack of lumber and swing it into your path before you realize it.
Hence my solution. I took a page from the mountain bikers in town and attached one of their cow-bells that I found on a hiking trail to my bike. I attached it in a way that it is constantly bumping into my tire so it is constantly ringing.
People who go hiking already know the sound, plus it sort of sounds like the railroad crossings. It seemed that a lot of the pedestrians out there on the bike path and on the street were more alert to me. People walking on the bike path heard me coming a long way off. It woke them from their reverie long enough to be alert to me. It woke pedestrians about to jaywalk in front of me. It allowed people in cars I couldn't see hear me before I saw them. Works well because it is summer and people have the windows down (it's not hot and humid here.)
Air zound horn blasts are too rude. Dinging my bike bell is too much work and too hyper. My self-ringing cowbell works really well.
The BikeForums Team
-adv-
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Hence my solution. I took a page from the mountain bikers in town and attached one of their cow-bells that I found on a hiking trail to my bike. I attached it in a way that it is constantly bumping into my tire so it is constantly ringing.
Baseball cards or balloons clipped to the frame and rubbing the spokes would be even more effective and old school.
derath
Ya know, many people believe the world needs more cowbell.
-D
I-Like-To-Bike
Ya know, many people believe the world needs more cowbell.
-D
Nope.
What the World Needs Now is Love - Burt Bacharach
Best Sung by Dionne Warwick or The Sweet Inspirations
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It's the only thing that there's just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love,
No not just for some but for everyone.
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It's the only thing that there's just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love,
No, not just for some but for everyone.
Lord, we don't need another mountain,
There are mountains and hillsides enough to climb
There are oceans and rivers enough to cross,
Enough to last till the end of time.
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
No, not just for some but for everyone.
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It's the only thing that there's just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love,
No, not just for some, oh, but just for
Every, every, everyone.
barba
It would drive me nuts. I love the silence of biking.
catatonic
What about spokey-dokies?
Did I just age myself?
JRA
Baseball cards or balloons clipped to the frame and rubbing the spokes would be even more effective and old school.
It could be very effective. Kind of a lost art, I'm afraid: being able to use a clothes pin to clip a baseball card to a bike in just the right way so it won't fall off and makes the bike sounds like a motorcycle. With two cards, you could create a double cyclinder. I doubt many of today's kids would even be able to identify a clothes pin if they saw one. Darn kids!
Bekologist
"EVERYBODY NEEDS LOVE by reggae singer John Holt; a cover of a Temptations song.... started singing for Leslie Kong of Kong records back in kingston, Jamaica, during the 60's reggae explosion.
"The whole world needs plenty of love"
I have been trying out a boat whistle but most peds don't recognize it as a 'bike' noise.
drivers can hear it, even with the windows up, its a 120 Db. USCG signal approved sound device.
but i like the idea of more cowbell....one of my bikes (Surly Dan, the Long Haul Trucker) does a little 'self ringing' thing- a key holder rings against the actual bell and rings intermitently. its like riding around on a daoist shrine, ;) and the prayer wheels are beneath me...just trying to keep them spinning....
catatonic
It could be very effective. Kind of a lost art, I'm afraid: being able to use a clothes pin to clip a baseball card to a bike in just the right way so it won't fall off and makes the bike sounds like a motorcycle. With two cards, you could create a double cyclinder. I doubt many of today's kids would even be able to identify a clothes pin if they saw one. Darn kids!
I was a clever kid, I used two hose clamps, some rubber strips to avoid damaging the fork/stays, and used a metal strip for card retention per card mount. Total of 4 cards, 2 per wheel!
Oh, and the pure plastic playing cards worked great!
LittleBigMan
My self-ringing cowbell works really well.
I have a bell for peds, but for motorists in their glass houses I have a whistle.
Sadly, one day I had to "tweet" at a driver who who didn't notice me and started to pull out into my path. Poor guy spilled his coffee...
chipcom
My self-ringing cowbell works really well.
Now you're gonna need a new BF username - Ole Bessie! :p :D ;)
sbhikes
The cowbell is effective because the mountain bikers use them on trails. People who hike our trails (an extremely popular activity--I support a web site devoted to local hiking with more than 200 unique visitors every day even in winter) are used to the sound and know it means bike. The bell even is stamped with "Santa Barbara Mountain Bike Trail Volunteers."
It is annoying but I thought I would only try it out for the bike path, which I ride a portion of during my commute. The effect was so good I kept the bell on all the way home and found it saved me from some other situations I didn't see coming. I couldn't see what was happening, but the other people could hear me coming.
tbdean
I just make motorcycle sounds. "brmmmmmmm brmmmmmm" * inhale * "brmmmmm brmmmm" People think I'm going really fast.
Uh oh, stop light. "screeeech".
Zeuser
There's a bike accessory that does motorcycle-ish sounds. It's mostly for kids and their big rear tire chopper bikes but it does work! It's essentially the same type of sound technology as baseball cards hitting wheel spokes, except it's plastic, and the sound is concentrated into a tube that looks like a fat exhaust pipe.
I saw a kid on a chooper bike that had one and man those things are noisy. At least that kid doesn't need a bell/horn to warn pedestrians. Peds simply get out of the way when they hear him coming.
And you have to admit, it looks and sounds even better than when I was a kid putting baseball cards on my fixed gear bike.
Bekologist
In a 2 1/2 mile long, converted railroad tunnel that serves now as a biker/hiker trail, I sometimes use the whistle and make 'chugga chugga' noises to FREAK OUT the pedsetrians i am overtaking.
A train like whistle, a look back, a bright light closing fast, and an incessant 'chugga chugga' noise.... i guess it is cruel until they figure out the ilusion....
Brian Ratliff
It would drive me nuts. I love the silence of biking.
1+ I'd be insane by the end of my first trip. Besides, the people most in need of hearing it are surrounded by metal and glass.
San Rensho
Baseball cards or balloons clipped to the frame and rubbing the spokes would be even more effective and old school.
Except the cards loosen the spokes!:D
cal_gundert05
OK, so where do you get these mountain biking bells? How much are they? What do they look like?
PS I googled it but didn't turn up anything.
lyledriver
I was in a bike shop not too long ago, and I spotted a haggard looking track bike with a small cowbell hanging from a zip tie on the seat rails..
Like Bruce Dickinson.. I GOTTA have more cowbell, so I took out my keys, and gave it a few taps.
INSTANTLY this courier came RUNNING out of the back of the shop to see if I was jacking his bike.
I couldn't even start 'Don't Fear the Reaper' it was that fast.
I just took a step back from his bike and was like "Sorry, I was just exploring the space."
Zinn-X
I usually just sing flamboyantly loud when I feel that I'm at risk for not being noticed. It works terrific and I've improved my singing voice quite a bit--it's difficult to maintain pitch while pedaling and trying to breath at the same time.
My favorite tunes are the National Anthem and the Spongebob Squarepants theme song.
sbhikes
The bell looks like an ordinary $5 cowbell painted white with the following logo on it:
http://www.sbmtv.org/Images/SBMTV_150w.gif
The mountain bikers in town buy these bells and stick them in boxes at the tops of the trails. Mountain bikers are supposed to pick up a bell wear it for the ride down the trail (down hill all the way) and then drop the bell in a box at the bottom. Volunteers collect the bells at the bottom of the trails and bring them back up to the top of the trail.
They fall off all the time, though, and I happened to find the one I have, and another one that was run over by a car.
I hadn't thought about using one as a theft-protection device, but I can see how well it would work. It also works great when you are riding down by the beach and these surfers are all swinging their surfboards around and darting right out in front of you with a longboard under their arm. If they don't hear a car coming they just assume all's clear. The bell helps with that.
77Univega
It would drive me nuts. I love the silence of biking.--- I also like the silence of biking but when I am cycling in a busy part of downtown, I could see the usefulness of some kind of gadget that emits a steady sound to alert others to my approach. Sounds like a good invention for urban cyclists.
San Rensho
Kind of like what sailboats have in the northeast, a bell that clangs with the rollling of the ship so that they announce their presence in the fog.
tbdean
I usually just sing flamboyantly loud <snip> the Spongebob Squarepants theme song.
ah crap, now I have it stuck in my head :mad:
"oooooooooooooooooooooooooooohh"
leob1
I tried the bell thing, once. It didn't make a difference, and it drove me crazy.
" Sadly, one day I had to "tweet" at a driver who who didn't notice me and started to pull out into my path. Poor guy spilled his coffee..."
So?
ken cummings
When I feel sound is called for I almost automatically whistle "White coral bells, upon a slender stalk, . . ." sharp and loud enough to be heard but nothing that can be complained about. If that does not part the ways on the MUPs I call out, "I am coming up behind you on my bicycle and I would like to pass on your left (or whatever)". My deep strong voice usually gets a good response. If they decide to be difficult I just dismount and work my Clydesdale way through. I have only backed off and gone another way a few times, usually involving street gangs in East LA.